


holy palmers' kiss

by nclgbt



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: 90s AU, Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, M/M, Romeo and Juliet References, The power of friendship, cw homophobia, cw toxic family relationships, donghyuck-centric, for plot purposes, ok this is literally a r+j au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29354172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nclgbt/pseuds/nclgbt
Summary: Donghyuck didn’t so much get over Mark as he did raze him entirely from his mind. Mark had left a space waiting to be filled with newer, shinier things, and Donghyuck had spent four years filling the deep well of nothingness that remained.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56
Collections: Love Dream 2020





	holy palmers' kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leewrlds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leewrlds/gifts).



> prompt: a hyuck centred ship - slow burn. possibly ex-lovers? brought back together when old school friends meet up. maybe one of them tried to move on? or just whatever feelings you get when you listen to talk show host by radiohead .. 
> 
> dear may:
> 
> thank you for your prompt! the only thing that came to mind when i listened to talk show host was baz luhrmann’s romeo + juliet (1996), so out sprung this vague 90s r+j au starring the dreamies, as many references as i could squeeze in there and significantly less death than the original. i extend my apologies to anyone who grew up in seoul in the 90s for all my inaccuracies, but hopefully you enjoy it nonetheless!
> 
> cw for alcohol consumption, homophobia, and toxic/manipulative parents

II

Donghyuck was drunk.

Well, either that or the floor of the foyer was finally buckling under the weight of the two billion people that had turned up for his cousin’s ill-planned costume party.

He was a dodgem at an exceedingly irritating and badly-lit fairground, bouncing between people and shooting glares at the potted plants that dared swing their foliage at him. The marble tiles rippled as Donghyuck pushed his way through the crowd, his hand raised to check if the plastic horns of his costume were still attached to his head.

He held no sentimental feelings for them – they were actually pretty tacky, bought cheap and last minute from a costume store and paired with a red jersey and an unfortunate pair of red jeans from the Gap. But Donghyuck had laughed when Renjun presented the devil costume to him, earlier that afternoon, which his sober-self had found significant.

Somewhere in Donghyuck’s mind a memory pinged weakly to remind him that he was supposed to meet someone here. Someone Renjun had assured him was made for parental approval yet still disturbingly fit.

A bold claim, considering the exacting standards of Donghyuck’s parents.

In his infinite, inebriated logic, Donghyuck had decided that the devil costume had to be intact when he met this mysterious stranger. It was a costume party, after all. He was certain Renjun had given the stranger a name, but by eleven, it was buried too deeply in Donghyuck’s subconscious for him to care. Or perhaps, caring too much was what led him to the bottle in the first place.

God, Donghyuck was drunk. It bears repeating, considering how he usually prided himself on his composure.

Donghyuck had never denied being a lightweight, so it was strange in itself that Renjun had let him disappear into the crowd unsupervised, clutching a bottle from his mother’ secret stash of gin. Yet there was something about that night — something about the anxious beat of his cousin’s terrible playlist and the revolving door of people at the party, entering, leaving, entering, and leaving, that made Donghyuck loosen his grip on his typical poise. The air, marbled with smoke from a machine, had the feeling of lightning about to strike. It raised goosebumps from Donghyuck’s arms as he lifted the bottle to his mouth and took a clumsy sip.

Amidst the thrum of guests, Donghyuck floated through his house like a spectre. His parents doted on his cousin, so Johnny was free to host his soirees on their property and their coin. Donghyuck had seen him just once, before the guests arrived, dressed as a gunslinging, shirtless cowboy.

Donghyuck was sure it was all part of the cowboy’s storyline.

A few faces floated in and out of recognition - some had bravely chosen to follow Johnny’s masquerade theme, though their host had abandoned it himself, while others were abandoning any accoutrements that got in the way of dancing, drinking, or being publicly indecent.

Falling into all three categories was Na Jaemin, bewigged and bedazzled and the centre of the room’s attention. Red was smudged around his mouth and his eyes were heavy with glitter, winking in the light.

Donghyuck’s sight fell on him like a camera coming into focus. They were friends, in high school, where Jaemin was fun but indifferent to strangers. It seemed that he was now a friend to all, holding the room in his palm.

Jaemin’s honey gaze slid slowly to meet Donghyuck’s over the gaggle. There it was — that cool indifference. In high school Donghyuck had envied Jaemin’s neutrality, a sin he had stoked to wrath in the three years that followed, and that same neutrality had relegated Donghyuck back to stranger.

Not that Donghyuck cared. It wasn’t like they had anything to say to each other. Besides, Jaemin wasn’t the type to sneak into parties, at least he wasn’t when they were classmates, and he wasn’t exactly keeping a low profile. He must have been a guest of Johnny’s, though Donghyuck couldn’t have guessed why. He had sworn to stay out of family politics, but Johnny loved that kind of shit.

Jaemin captured the attention of another rapturous party-goer, and the moment passed. If it weren’t for the nauseating lurch of Donghyuck’s stomach, he might have been able to convince himself that he hadn’t seen Jaemin at all. The crowd pressed around him in claustrophobic pulses, in syncopation with Donghyuck’s heart beating too close to his skin.

He had to get out.

Even within the drunken labyrinth that was his house, Donghyuck knew that there had to be a safe space. Somewhere far from the noise and the smoke and the goddamn heat. His parents liked Johnny, but even their magnanimity didn’t extend past the second floor lounge. Though Donghyuck didn’t have much faith in Johnny’s guests, he knew that if he could just make it to the guest suites, he’d be safe.

Donghyuck, still infinitely generous, donated his remaining half bottle to the closest punch bowl as he went, wanting the sticky scent of the party as far away from him as possible.

He knew Renjun must have been on the lookout for him. Chenle was a lost cause, having invited a posse of his own and taken ownership of the karaoke machine. But Renjun had the eyes of a hawk and the temperament to match, God bless him, so Donghyuck ducked at the sight of every Peter Pan, Link and any other vague green twink, masked or not.

Donghyuck’s head began to throb. But the more stairs he climbed, the thinner the crowds got. Not even smoke and copious strobe lighting could make people forget whose house they were in.

The headache settled behind his eyes and behind his ears, and Donghyuck had cursed his exploits half to death before his hands finally found the handle of the upstairs hall bathroom. The door swung open with the lightest touch, as if the chill of the marble and all the metal had been waiting for him, beckoning him in. Grateful, Donghyuck stumbled into the bathroom, arms out, kicking the door shut behind him to melt into the room’s dark embrace.

He found the sink and braced his hand against it. His reflection stared back at him, a bright spot against the dark tiles of the bathroom. Someone had left a sconce on, and it threw shadows across the planes of his face as it flickered dully.

Donghyuck leaned forward to press his burning cheek to the cool surface. His mind felt stuck in that little gap in the glass between real-him and mirror-him. A quiet, inbetween-space for him to think.

Which would have been easier if his head wasn’t pounding to the high heavens. He groaned into the glass and went back to cursing his tolerance, and cursing how his cheeks were as red as his costume. His hands found the faucet and he bent to collect the cold water in his cupped palms, splashing it over his face and dragging it through his hair. His reflection reminded him suddenly of a dog caught in the rain, but at least the uncomfortable heat prickling under his skin was subsiding.

The door sprang open behind him, bouncing against the wall with a painful crack and in its doorway stood a prince in brilliant silver. His hair was mussed under a plastic crown, party streamers tangled in the ribbons of his costume. He had adhered to the dress code, plastic mask

Donghyuck squinted at the prince’s reflection as it swam in the mirror like a mirage. Then, the prince spoke, voice bubbling in Donghyuck’s ears like he was underwater, peering at the world through warped glass.

Donghyuck closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened his eyes the prince was still there. The line of his cheek under his masquerade mask looked like the curve of Donghyuck’s thumb, and Donghyuck’s hand burst with a phantom ache.

“What?” Donghyuck said, when he realised the prince was waiting for an answer.

“Are you okay?” the prince asked. His body jerked forward, as if he wanted to take a step towards Donghyuck, but his hand stayed locked around the doorknob. Like the wood was the only thing holding him back.

“Are you lost?” Donghyuck asked instead. _A question for a question_ , he thought with a laugh. Then the giggle broke through his lips, making his head throb.

Wincing, Donghyuck pressed a hand against his temple. The prince made no move to enter the bathroom, nor did he appear to want to leave, so Donghyuck continued his dramatic descent to the floor.

“Please,” he said, gesturing widely as he reached the ground. “Sit.”

“Have you been drinking?” the prince asked. His voice was laced with a laugh, a familiar fondness.

“It’s a party,” Donghyuck said, because _duh_. “I’m not a kid.”

“Sure, sure,” the prince conceded, finally stepping into the room to sit cross-legged against the door, opposite Donghyuck. If they both stretched their legs out they might have touched. “I haven’t been to a party in a long time.”

“Okay,” Donghyuck said grandly, graciously. “Colour me intrigued. What’s your sob story then, prince?”

The prince laughed his disbelieving, fond laugh. “No sob story,” he said, putting his hands up. “Just a fact.”

“Boo,” Donghyuck said. “I like your costume.”

“Thanks,” smiled the lovely prince. “I like yours too.”

“Ahh,” Donghyuck said, nodding sagely, “you’re hitting on me.”

The prince’s head jerked back, like he was surprised at Donghyuck’s powers of observation. “What?” he said, as Donghyuck laughed at the crack in his voice.

“Don’t clutch your pearls, prince, it’s okay,” he giggled. Then, in a show of boldness, or kindness, or intoxication, he told him a secret.

“I hit on you first.”

Silence fell between them, but Donghyuck knew that the prince wouldn’t react in an unsavoury manner. The air in the room remained still, but it wasn’t charged with anger or disgust. It thrummed with an energy far more cautious, far too considering.

The prince swallowed, and Donghyuck watched the bob of his throat with a surprising clarity.

“Do you do that often?” the prince asked.

Donghyuck shrugged. “You seem kind,” he said, and it felt like he had spilled his whole truth to this prince, whose smile sang so impossibly familiar.

“Well,” the prince said with another long swallow. “I can tell you’re out of practice.”

Donghyuck swung his head around, wincing as he went, to glare at his new mortal enemy. He suddenly felt very, very sober, yet very, very drunk all at once. It was probably a side effect of the rage. “Are you fucking kidding?” he asked, appalled at the fucking audacity of this stranger.

The prince bit down on his lower lip, trying to hide a laugh in a way that just made him look stupid.

“Telling someone their costume is good doesn’t even count as a pickup line. If you’re flirting with someone, you’ve got to let them _know_ , you know?”

“I didn’t say your costume was _good_ , romance yoda,” Donghyuck said, jabbing his finger in the prince’s direction, because that was the important distinction. “I said I _liked it_. God strike me down the next time I try to give a guy a compliment.”

“Compliments aren’t flirting,” the prince said.

“You are infuriating,” Donghyuck replied with a groan. “I take it back.”

“Aw,” the prince said, “you can’t do that!”

Donghyuck leaned forward on his hands and stuck out his tongue. “I do as I like, prince, and don’t you forget it.”

The prince folded under Donghyuck’s gaze, ducking his chin to the side. He mumbled something far too softly for Donghyuck to hear.

Not that Donghyuck minded. Not when he was close enough to see the glitter freckling the side of the prince’s neck, where his hair had curled in the party’s sticky humidity, the hint of brown behind his mask.

“Would a kiss count?” Donghyuck asked. The prince went still once more, face tucked away from Donghyuck’s. The quickening of breath between them told Donghyuck the answer.

“Count as what?” the prince asked, nonsensical. “You don’t know who I am,” he said, like he was telling Donghyuck a terrible truth.

“What about this?” Donghyuck said, reaching out to touch his fingers to the back of the prince’s hand, which turned to reveal its palm like a flower opening to the sun. Donghyuck laid his palm against the prince’s, and felt all seventeen-thousand nerve endings burst aflame under his skin.

“No, I— I don’t know.” The prince stuttered, “I don’t know. It only counts if I know.”

With a tug, they fell together, the prince’s mask pressing uncomfortably against the bridge of Donghyuck’s nose and Donghyuck feeling a vague regret at not popping a mint. At least he wasn’t the only one who had indulged in some liquid courage at the party. Then it all gave way to something not unlike holding a scared animal in a cupped palm. Gentle and hesitant, the kiss was chaste in a way that holding the prince’s hand wasn’t. Donghyuck had transformed into his teenage self and back by the time they jolted apart, the bang on the door behind them like a thunderclap.

“I know you’re in there, Donghyuck!” Renjun yelled from the hallway. “I’m giving you three minutes to make yourself look like you didn’t puke before I go in there and drag you out myself!”

“I didn’t puke,” Donghyuck rushed out before the prince could comment. The prince put his hands up in agreement, but found that one of his hands was still caught in Donghyuck’s. Donghyuck found himself squinting at the prince’s knobbly fingers for a moment, before retracting his hand hastily.

“He sounds serious,” the prince said in a whisper, as if Renjun had threatened to drag him out as well.

“He means business,” Donghyuck agreed, feeling woozy again. His body was turned towards the door but his head stayed stubbornly resistant, drinking in the mussed hair and the plastic crown and the stupid, stupid mask.

The prince looked down, rubbing the back of his head. “Go,” he said with a laugh, and Donghyuck was struck with a feeling he swore he’d never feel again.

“I’m gonna go,” he said, redundant, finally making a move towards the door. If he stayed any longer, he might finally convince himself that the eyes behind the mask were sad to see him leave, just as he did before.

Turning away from the prince, hand raised in farewell, Donghyuck opened the door to Renjun’s expectant face, and fled.

III

The morning arrived, pink and new-born and screaming, to shit on Donghyuck’s hangover.

“Mmrhaghmph,” Donghyuck said into his pillow, like a human, and fought against his better judgment to blink himself awake. Turning, he found a glass of water and painkillers on his bedside table, and felt instantly as if there was a God.

Heaving himself onto his elbows, he fumbled for the blister pack and knocked back the glass, cringing at the spill of water over his chin. The pounding from last night was back, and with a thundering vengeance. Donghyuck pressed the curve of the glass to his eyelids and groaned again.

"Why?" he lamented. He didn’t have any misconceptions of how well he could hold his liquor — which is to say, not well at all — yet that hadn't stopped him. Donghyuck could only be grateful that his body had chosen a headache over nausea. Those were the consequences, as unsavoury as that reality was. Regardless, there was a lesson to be learnt, here. A lesson called Stop Being Stupid, perhaps. A lesson called Don't Kiss Boys That Remind You Of Your Ex.

The memory flew to the forefront of Donghyuck's mind, a sick swoop from his throat down to the pit of his stomach. The party had ended with Renjun at his right and Lee Jeno standing awkwardly before him, his face the picture of politeness, as if they were at a business dinner hosted by their parents and not three sheets to the wind. And that was the only context in which Donghyuck knew Jeno — his mother was on the board of Kim Group, so Donghyuck’s parents couldn’t go one day without reminding Donghyuck that he went to the same university as society’s golden boy. Donghyuck was sure that the moment Renjun introduced him to Jeno, his parents felt a long-absent pang of pride from their quiet hotel room on the other side of the river.

Lee Jeno was nice enough for someone Donghyuck’s parents held in such high regard. Even his NASA jumpsuit looked legit, a far cry from the prince’s stupid plastic crown, the tinsel on his shoulders. Yet behind Donghyuck’s eyelids was nothing but that scene, replayed. That bright silver mask shining like a beacon in the mossy headiness of the bathroom, sweaty palms touching, had Donghyuck trembling, still.

He took a steadying breath and swung his legs over the side of his bed. Glass placed haphazardly back on the side table, Donghyuck squinted at the calendar taped to the wall above his desk. Try as he might, he couldn't master the skill of influencing time. There was no going back, and certainly no changing things.

His digital alarm clock beeped from where it had been knocked over, the red squares blinking solemnly at him.

Donghyuck stared down at his hands, clutching the pale fabric of his blanket with white knuckles. He wanted to scoff at his own dramatics, this goddamn pavlovian reaction at the thought of him. He couldn’t keep going like this, imagining his eyes behind a stranger’s mask. To reach out whenever he thought his hands could fit as well as they did with his.

“Come on,” Donghyuck muttered to himself. He was facing a brick wall, and it was taking everything in his poor, hungover mind to just push past it. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

“Donghyuck?”

Donghyuck jumped, twisting in the direction of the voice. All at once, his breath left him.

“Auntie,” he said, deflating. His family’s housekeeper stood in his doorway, cordless phone in her hand and her face a sympathetic grimace.

“Renjun wanted to let you know he’d be over for lunch,” she said, shaking the phone. “I would get in that shower, young man. And I don’t even want to know what your mouth smells like right now.”

“Auntieee,” Donghyuck whined, flopping back onto his sheets.

“No attitude, boy,” she said, eyes crinkling as she smiled. “Go on, I need to feed the twins.”

Donghyuck did not envy her that task, so he gathered the strength to leave the relative safety of his bed to stagger to his en suite. Under the hot spray of the shower, he willed himself to go blissfully blank, for his thoughts to dissolve under the water.

Well, blank enough that it wouldn’t be written all over his face that he’d spend his entire waking morning thinking about him. Renjun would never let Donghyuck hear the end of it if he showed up to lunch like that.

The veranda was clear of any debaucherous evidence by the time Donghyuck made his way down — unless you counted Chenle, who Donghyuck was pleased to see looked about as hungover as he still felt. Chenle was blinking blearily into the distance, but Renjun irritatingly looked bright as a daisy next to him, sipping at an iced americano.

“I hate you,” Donghyuck said as he neared. He swiped a hand at Chenle’s hair as Chenle grunted at him in greeting. Renjun pursed his lips and kicked a chair out for Donghyuck.

“Your face is stupid,” Renjun replied, pushing a teacup of oolong in Donghyuck’s direction. Donghyuck made a delighted noise, and stuck his face right into the fragrant steam.

“Why do we do this to ourselves _every time_?” Chenle whined.

“You know, I thought the exact same thing this morning,” Donghyuck said with a grimace, wondering how many days it would be until Chenle found himself at another party. He had his bets on three.

“At least you don’t need me to tell you that your make out session was a bit… inadvisable,” Renjun said with a nonchalance that could only beget the end of the world.

“My what?” Donghyuck went cold, that sick, anxious tundra spreading from the pit of his stomach to the tips of his fingers. He clenched his hands to stop them from shaking.

“You didn’t put down that bottle once until I found you,” Renjun continued. “Last I saw of it you were practically shoving your tongue down it’s neck.”

Donghyuck drew from the last dregs of his energy to throw him the deadliest glare he could muster. “That metaphor is fucked up, Huang Renjun.”

“What,” Renjun drolled, rolling his eyes, “Did you think I was talking about you and Jeno? You barely spoke to him all night. I wasn’t forcing you to marry him then and there, I just thought it might be nice for you to know that there’s an openly bisexual person out there who your parents approve of.”

Donghyuck choked on his tea. “Lee Jeno is bi?”

“Do you need me to repeat myself?” Renjun asked sweetly. “Again?”

“When was I made aware of this in the first place?” Donghyuck asked, voice taking on a slightly hysterical edge. He felt the urge to look around him, to ask Renjun to lower his voice.

“I told you someone from my language class was bi,” Renjun said.

“You could have meant _anyone_!”

Donghyuck felt thoroughly out of his own mind. Was this common knowledge? Renjun must have assumed he’d known, but did Donghyuck’s _parents_?

“You’re overthinking,” Renjun said.

“Fucking obviously!” Donghyuck exclaimed. “Oh my God, he’s a _Kim_.”

“Technically,” Chenle started, “He’s a Lee. Which is kind of a freaky coincidence, but also not really because, like, statistics. Do you ever think about that?”

Donghyuck grit his teeth. “I spend every waking moment trying _not_ to, thanks.”

Of course, Renjun knew what he meant. He knew all too well. Giving Donghyuck a moment to collect himself — which meant staring at his rapidly cooling beverage for about three minutes and trying not to scream — Renjun steered the conversation back to Chenle’s own escapades, and how he had made off with another one of Donghyuck’s karaoke microphones.

“I just don’t know what comes over me,” Chenle says, less ashamed than absurdly amused at himself. “I guess I never learn.”

“You sure don’t,” Renjun said, leaning forward with his hands steepled under his chin. “But you know who _else_ never learns? Donghyuck’s _cousin_.”

Donghyuck looked up from his cup to stare at Renjun. “You’re being very efficient today,” he said, a little impressed and kind of frightened. “What did he do this time?”

“Oh, I’m not here to fuck around,” Renjun agreed. “I have heard, from _reliable sources_ , that your parents’ favourite nephew facilitated the infiltration of a public enemy into _your_ safe space last night.”

Donghyuck looked at him. “Small words,” he pleaded, “brain hurty.”

Chenle nodded somberly in support, but Renjun just sighed like he was about to perform a great sacrifice.

“I didn’t want this to be true,” he said, “but I guess it’s better that I’m the one to tell you.” Then, an uncharacteristic hesitation, enough to give Donghyuck pause, crossed Renjun’s face.

“Na Jaemin was at the party last night.”

Donghyuck blinked. “Uh, yeah? I saw him.”

From the corner of his eye Donghyuck saw Chenle perk up a little. Whatever Renjun knew, it had to be good. Or extremely bad.

Renjun cleared his throat. “And you know how his parents work with the Kims?”

“Yes, yes,” Donghyuck said, waving his hand. “This is starting to sound like a family dinner. You’re fine with Lee Jeno, fine enough to want to introduce him to me, but you’re drawing the line at my cousin inviting Jaemin?”

Renjun looked at him like he’d grown another head. “If they can be hypocrites, why can’t we?” he said, as if that made _any_ sense. At Donghyuck’s confused noise, Renjun sighed, and set his cup down to explain.

“You know how intense your cousin can be about the family looking good to the Kims. I just thought it would be nice to have Jeno on your side. You know, considering how Na is a non-option.”

Next to him, Chenle was still nodding, but as if everything made perfect sense.

“We were all friends in high school,” Donghyuck reminded him.

Renjun and Chenle looked at each other.

“What?” Donghyuck asked. “What else are you not telling me? Renjun—”

“ _Okay_ , you got me!” Renjun cried, throwing his hands up. Chenle dropped his head back into his hands. “I was trying to be _subtle_.”

“I didn’t know how to say this,” Renjun said, “but apparently Mark Lee is back. And he was seen with Jaemin right before the party.”

For four years, Donghyuck had been preparing himself for the moment that the Earth would stand still. That time would stop, or the sky would cave in.

None of that happened.

“Which means,” Renjun continued, his tone delicate, “that he might have, you know, been there too.”

Why was he not reacting?

“Hello?” Chenle asked, wide eyes popping into view. “Are you still here? Fuck, ge, I told you we should have taken a more delicate approach.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Renjun hissed.

Donghyuck cleared his throat. He stirred at his tea. The world didn’t burst into flames around him.

“We broke him,” Chenle wailed. “Look, he hasn’t spoken in like five minutes!”

Donghyuck’s teaspoon met the table with a clatter. “You’re all being very dramatic this morning,” he said, “You’re offending my hangover.”

Chenle breathed a theatrical sigh of relief, but Renjun just narrowed his eyes at Donghyuck. At least he had the good grace to look slightly guilty.

“People get invited to parties, people gatecrash parties, the world doesn’t end,” Donghyuck said coolly, his indifference surprisingly comfortable. “I mean, what did Johnny expect?”

Chenle nodded eagerly. “I think Lee Jeno is in the clear, but I heard that, um, you-know-who’s cousin was seen at lunch with Kim Dongyoung.”

Renjun scoffed, as if the notion of lunch suddenly offended him.

 _Well,_ Donghyuck thought idly, _lunch with a Vancouver Lee probably_ would _offend Renjun._

“Jeno said he had fun,” Renjun said, seeing the segue and taking it. He was resourceful like that. “He seemed to think you were a laugh instead of a horrendous drunkard.”

“Money can’t buy taste,” Donghyuck said mildly.

“I heard Kim Dongyoung throws the _sickest_ parties, though,” Chenle said excitedly, previous tone forgotten.

“What?” Renjun said sceptically, “I heard he was basically an old man.”

As his friends bickered, Donghyuck burrowed deeper into his mind. He hm-ed and ah-ed at the right moments, but he could feel the information digesting in his stomach, the roiling of the acid over the words _Mark Lee is back, Mark Lee is back_.

 _He felt too familiar,_ Donghyuck thought with a jolt. Maybe the world hadn’t ended at Renjun’s words because it simply wasn’t new information. Donghyuck’s world hasn’t been flipped that groggy afternoon at all. No, that power lay with the previous night.

“Boys,” the twins’ nanny called down from the balcony to them, “are you coming in for food?”

Donghyuck shook himself to yell an affirmative. Chenle leapt up, leaving his bag and sunglasses for the prospect of food. Donghyuck picked up after him on autopilot, not noticing Renjun’s nervous presence hovering beside him.

Renjun reached out to grasp Donghyuck’s wrist. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.

Donghyuck lifted a shoulder in a shrug.

“When am I not?”

IV

Family dinners were rarely interesting affairs.

With his sister abroad for school and the twins finally having learnt table manners, conversation revolved mainly around how hard Donghyuck’s father had worked that day, or which of his colleague’s had a son in a more prestigious programme than Donghyuck’s, or who else in the twins’ taekwondo class had started learning the piano. A few minutes were dedicated to Johnny’s impeccable party-planning skills, but with Donghyuck looking bright-eyed and the house returned to its spotless state, there wasn’t much else that Donghyuck’s parents could openly disapprove of.

After those topics had been exhausted, Donghyuck’s mother turned her appraising eye to Donghyuck.

“Do you remember Jeon Minjoo’s daughter?” she asked. “The tall one who went abroad to Yale to study?”

Donghyuck did not, but he certainly knew where this was going.

“Well,” his mother continued, “she’s back in Seoul for some semester abroad. At Korea University.”

“Why?” demanded Donghyuck’s father, as though his disapproval would actually mean something to Jeon Minjoo’s poor, overachieving child. “She goes all the way to America just to come back here? She could have gone anywhere else. She should have challenged herself! I told you — that Minjoo coddles her too much.”

Donghyuck silently scooped more rice into his brother’s bowl.

“I’m telling you,” Donghyuck’s father continued, “the Jeons only thought about sending their daughter America because you mentioned our Daeun getting into Harvard.”

Donghyuck’s mother rolled her eyes. “Daeun is not in competition with Minjoo’s girls.”

Donghyuck stabbed his chopsticks through the pile of vegetables in his bowl. “Does Jeon Minjoo’s daughter have a _name_?” he asked.

“Don’t play with your food, dear,” Donghyuck’s mother smiled placidly. “But I’m glad you’re showing an interest, since you’ll meet young Yunseo tomorrow when you come with me to brunch.”

Donghyuck could practically hear the clang of the bars sealing shut over his plans to check out the new record store by the music department. “I have rehearsal,” he tried.

His mother pressed her lips together. “We’re meeting tomorrow,” she said, her tone final.

“It’s at noon.”

“We’re meeting before noon. You will have time.”

“Have fuuuuun,” chirped Donghyuck’s younger sister, seaweed stuck to her cheek. Donghyuck pulled a face at her until she turned away, giggling.

“Don’t mention the MBA at Korea University,” Donghyuck’s father warned, “we don’t want these people getting any more ideas.”

“Donghyuck will be good,” Donghyuck’s mother said, jade bracelet clinking against her watch as she waved her hand, though Donghyuck suspected that the warning was directed more towards her.

“Hm,” Donghyuck’s father grunted, nodding slightly. He stared at Donghyuck for a moment, before turning back to his steak. He always wanted steak for dinner. Steak and American liquor. Reward for such hard work, Donghyuck supposed.

“Won’t you, darling?”

Donghyuck lifted his head to look at his mother. Her lipstick hadn’t smudged once during dinner — an expectant, crimson line across her face.

“When am I not?”

-

As far as Donghyuck was concerned, there was little his mother enjoyed more than having everyone in a room hang off her every word. She was already radiating a palpably smug energy in the car, the bag clutched in her lap sure to become her circle’s next big talking point, the son at her side accomplished enough that at least three aunties would inform her yet again that their daughters were very accomplished too, and wouldn’t they look adorable together?

Donghyuck stared out the window. He wondered what Jeon Minjoo’s daughter had done, exactly, to incur the attention of his mother. But his morbid fascination couldn’t quite overcome his feeling of dread, so he kept his mouth shut and glared through the tinted glass at the streets of Seoul.

Even through the grey tinge the city was vibrant. The cafe his mother had booked out was supposed to be trendy, because she liked to think of herself as a trendsetting sort of lady. Donghyuck’s grandfather had spent many years ruthlessly establishing himself in the area, until the Vancouver Lees were forced to consider other options.

It was no coincidence that the building was a stone’s throw away from Donghyuck’s university building. He had spent the previous evening devising a plan to beg away early from the get-together-slash-matchmaking-attempt. It certainly wasn’t his first rodeo, but his mother was getting more terrifying with each introduction she made.

The university’s music department came into view across the road as the driver pulled to a stop. Each of the roadshops and kitschy arcades that flanked its gates looked like an escape route. Students wearing nylon jackets raced each other down the dusty road, weaving between parked scooters and signboards boasting exclusive discounts. Donghyuck looked forlornly at the shiny new storefront of the record store, the posters on the window and the bins of LPs lined up under the striped awning.

Donghyuck’s mother stepped out of the car and snapped her fingers. “Be quick, dear,” she said, leaning to check her reflection in the window. “I think I see Cha Nayoung already. Tch, what kind of person is always trying to arrive earlier than the host?”

Sliding out of the car, Donghyuck found himself facing the road as he slid his backpack securely over his shoulders and stretched. Someone stepped out of the record store, head turned to laugh at someone inside. Deftly dodging the crowd to perch on the iron bench by the curb, he reached into his hood to pull out a small notebook.

So it was true. It wasn’t as if Renjun hadn’t warned him. And it wasn’t as if Donghyuck had already known. The difference was that there was no way for Donghyuck to deny it now, for him to conjure up some excuse or explanation.

It was tiring work, denial, even for someone rather well-versed in it. Donghyuck was exhausted.

“Donghyuck!” his mother called. “Are you coming inside?”

Donghyuck tore his eyes away from Mark Lee once again, and followed behind his mother.

-

As predicted, Yunseo was tall and accomplished. She was also as uncomfortable with the whole situation as Donghyuck was. Maybe even more so, which was a bit insulting but, you know, whatever, Donghyuck understood.

“You’re studying music, right Donghyuck?” Jeon Minjoo asked, her smile a bit pinched around the corners. So she didn’t know about Donghyuck’s father’s MBA at Korea University plans after all.

‘Yes, auntie,” Donghyuck replied.

Jeon Minjoo started to giggle. “So polite!” she exclaimed to the room at large, receiving a chorus of approving titters. Donghyuck’s mother beamed from where she was sitting in the centre of the room.

“I have rehearsal in a few minutes, actually,” Donghyuck lied.

“So hard working!” another auntie declared. “You shouldn’t let us keep you.”

Jeon Minjoo leapt to her feet. “Exchange numbers with our Yunseo first,” she said, making tiny shooing motions at her daughter with her hands. Yunseo looked awkwardly up at her mother. “You two will have _so much_ to talk about! Here, take my pen!”

Donghyuck dutifully scribbled their house number on a receipt and handed it to Yunseo, grimacing in a way he hoped conveyed enough apologies and sympathy for the questioning she was about to endure. At his mother’s vaguely approving nod, he shoved his bag over his shoulder and power walked to the stairs, barely breathing until he had stepped out onto the sidewalk outside.

And now he had no plan.

Rehearsal didn’t start for an hour. Renjun had promised to meet him in the department foyer ten minutes before, so that left fifty minutes where Donghyuck had no plan and all the freedom in the world to walk across the street and sit where Mark Lee had sat approximately eighty minutes ago and freak out.

God, being in close proximity to him was so much worse when Donghyuck was sober.

Donghyuck grit his teeth and shook his hair out of his eyes. Well, nobody was going to stop _him_ from going where he liked. If he had plans to check out the store, he was going to step inside and check it out like a normal person, goddammit.

Marching across the road, Donghyuck didn’t give the bench a second glance. He would enter the store and it would just be a normal place, and he would go about his day as planned, and maybe scream into his pillow about it later. The ghost of Mark Lee couldn’t follow him everywhere. Donghyuck wouldn’t allow it. If he couldn’t go places that Mark Lee had once been, he would be driven out of his own home.

A bell jingled as Donghyuck pushed open the door. The store had that vague, sawdusty smell of a new house, and was a far cry from the spray-painted, glorified basements that were his classmates’ favourite haunts. Cheery labels and signs proclaiming Store Opening! and Limited Time Offer! littered the aisles.

“Hey, welcome to Deja Vu Records, do you—”

Donghyuck swallowed. He truly did not understand how he didn’t see this coming.

On closer inspection, the store’s logo was emblazoned on both the denim cap and oversized shirt. Mouth gaping like some bug-eyed goldfish, Mark Lee looked like a walking advertisement, which Donghyuck supposed was probably the point. Donghyuck hated how surprised Mark looked — he hated how surprised he was himself — but at some point rationality gave way to years of suppressed anger, condensed into rage.

“What are you doing here, Mark Lee?” Donghyuck demanded.

“Shit,” Mark muttered, pulling his cap off his hand and wringing it in his hands. “I work here? I promise I’m not— I— Look, this is just a weird coincidence — _promise_.”

Now, Donghyuck didn’t have the time or the capacity to unpack the irony of their conversation. He was immediately grateful for the emptiness of the store, because he was starting to feel a bit unreasonable.

“Working? But why? Why _here_?”

Mark sighed, choosing to tap into his infinite kindness to finally, _finally_ look Donghyuck in the eye.

“It’s really complicated,” he said tiredly. “Like, really, _really_ complicated. It doesn’t help that Jaemin convinced me to go to that party, and that I—”

“Oh _please_ ,” Donghyuck said, desperately hating where the conversation was going. “I knew it was you.”

Mark paused. He squinted at Donghyuck — that dumb, sceptical face the same as it’s always been. “Are you sure?”

“I figured it out!” Donghyuck wanted to snarl, hating how that awful, palm-numbing anxiety had leached itself out of his body in the presence of the boy that had his heart and stomped all over it. His anger had deflated like a cheap balloon. The words came out so petulant that seventeen-year-old him would be proud.

“I still shouldn’t have let you—”

“ _Let_ me?” Donghyuck parrotted, voice going high and embarrassing at the end. Where was his composure when he needed it most? “Get over yourself, Mark Lee.”

“I’ve been trying,” Mark said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. It was already mussed from the cap, cut shorter than it had been in high school. He looked nervously towards the door and it made Donghyuck fidget. Donghyuck knew he must have looked terrible, teeth flashing and words unkind. He was no better than he was, before. He obviously hadn’t learned anything, when Mark was out there, somewhere, apparently trying to do just that. To learn.

Donghyuck only had this sad sort of anger.

“I owe you an explanation,” Mark said seriously, earnestly, frustratingly. “If you want it. I don’t know how busy you are, but I have Sundays off. I can wait here at noon for you. Tomorrow, I mean.”

“I’m going to stand you up,” Donghyuck said, because he couldn’t help himself.

Mark smiled that lovely, prince’s smile. “Okay,” he said.

V

Donghyuck decided to go early.

Not _too_ early — he wasn’t desperate, for God’s sake — but he left enough time to spare so that he could convince himself that he was the one in control. That he could choose how this ended — when it did.

“You’re here!”

Donghyuck turned to see Mark jog to a stop before him. He was wearing his work cap again, for some reason, and a denim jacket over a truly tragic Hawaiian shirt.

“You’re late,” Donghyuck said, just to be annoying. It was two minutes past noon. “Had more important places to be?”

“Sorry,” Mark said, “I was at morning service. But I never stick around, so.”

He gestured as if to say _here I am_ , and it took everything in Donghyuck’s power not to call him a dork.

Instead, Donghyuck shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets and pretending to stare disinterestedly down the road. “You said you wanted to talk?” he said, as if he hadn’t spent almost twenty-four hours thinking about what Mark Lee possibly had to say to him now that he refused to four years ago.

Mark still had that startled look about him. “Yeah,” he said, “we could go to this restaurant Jisung told me about? It’s supposed to be good, but pretty cheap.”

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Donghyuck asked, though the name sounded familiar.

“Sorry, that’s the kid whose parents own the store. I guess he’s at university now, so he’s not really a kid, huh? I haven’t even made it to— well,” Mark cleared his throat.

Donghyuck waited for the end of the sentence, but it never came. But he could put two and two together.

“I thought you had gone to America for college,” Donghyuck said, as coolly as he could. Besides, it was the truth. Mark was smart enough to meet his parents’ expectations. A kid at a foreign business school was what everyone in their social circles wanted. This alone was what united Seoul’s business rivals.

They had started walking away from the familiarity of the music department and towards an area populated mostly by students. It was taking a lot of energy to focus on not slamming into every single other pedestrian and figuring out what the hell was going on with Mark at the same time.

“Canada,” Mark said absently, weaving between two groups of middle schoolers.

“My sister’s in America for college,” Donghyuck said, just to say something.

“Oh shit, no way? Daeun’s in America? Man, I remember when she used to be so shy speaking English.”

Donghyuck couldn’t help but look at him. Why was Mark being so… weird? There was no way anybody in Seoul didn’t know about his sister’s university. Not with the way his father couldn’t shut up about it if he tried. Mark’s family definitely knew, especially with how each family couldn’t help but keep tabs on the other, despite every claim that they couldn’t care less.

“So you went back to… Canada for college instead? Like, Vancouver?” Donghyuck asked.

“Ha, no,” Mark said flatly. “I lived with my aunt for a while, in Toronto. Hey, did you know that my cousin has this Korean friend whose parents sent her _here_ for a summer because they found a pack of cigarettes in her bag?”

“What, as punishment?” Donghyuck asked.

“I guess so,” Mark said, huffing out another mirthless laugh. “I wonder if she fared better than I did.”

Donghyuck swallowed. There was so much he wanted to ask. There was so much he didn’t want to ask. There was no delicate way of putting things, not with what he’d heard his parents say about Mark’s. Not with what _Renjun’s_ parents have said about Mark’s. They were actually pretty reasonable people, who smiled when their son brought friends home and ruffled Donghyuck’s hair to tease him.

“Oh, I think this is it,” Mark said, stopping to peer into one of the many restaurants that lined the street. “I’m _starving_.”

It was almost too normal — or however normal things had been when they were teenagers — hiding in plain sight with Mark lee. They had been too confident, too pig-headed, convinced that they wouldn’t be caught in this store or that park.

Of course, it hadn’t worked out quite like they’d planned.

Donghyuck stayed quiet as Mark ordered, only speaking to choose his own meal. He didn’t want to know if Mark still remembered his favourite dishes, that he preferred rice to noodles and drank iced drinks even in winter.

“Did you want rice with that?” Mark asked before the waiter could leave. Goddammit.

“Ah, yeah,” Donghyuck said. “Sorry. Thanks.”

The waiter nodded and finally made his escape. If the awkwardness was stifling Donghyuck, he was sure everyone around them could sense it too. Donghyuck took a long drink of water.

“I’m kind of surprised I didn’t know you were back for good,” Donghyuck said, aiming for unaffected but probably landing at extremely nosy. “This seems like the kind of intel my parents would love to gossip about. You know, to satisfy the superiority complex they have over your parents.”

Mark shrugged. “I dunno what my parents think,” he said, “don’t speak to them.”

Donghyuck blinked. ‘What?”

Mark shrugged again. “Yeah, I haven’t seen them in four years. Haven’t spoken to them in three. I’m not really interested in them getting involved in my life again.”

Donghyuck tried desperately to wrap his head around this new information. “Are you telling me that they don’t know you’re here? Your _parents_? What— what about your aunt? Oh my God, did you run away? Does she not realise you’re _missing_?”

Mark laughed, and it sounded genuine. Naturally, this made Donghyuck freak out even more. “They don’t get along anymore,” Mark said, “and she knows where I am.”

“What?” Donghyuck asked again, feeling a little weak. It was a good thing he was sitting down.

“I told you it was complicated,” Mark said, like it was a little inside joke of theirs instead of being massively fucked up. When Donghyuck’s parents had told him that Mark’s parents were going to deal with him on their own, he had never expected it to happen like this.

“You seem kind of surprised,” Mark pointed out.

“I don’t know what to think,” Donghyuck gritted out. “I knew they hadn’t liked— hadn’t _approved_ of— fuck. It’s starting to sound like they sent you away.”

The waiter returned with their food, and Donghyuck took the opportunity to fall silent again. His parents had been right. It was all Mark’s parents’ fault.

“I don’t want to overstep,” Mark said, staring at the food on the table. “But I really wanted to come back. I didn’t mean to—” he inhaled sharply, “to leave you alone, you know? I just couldn’t come back to Seoul.”

“You’re here now,” Donghyuck whispered into the fragrant smoke rising from the stone bowls.

Mark cleared his throat, eyes darting between the food, the cutlery the wood grain of the old, low table. “Yeah,” he said. “My cousin helped.”

“Your cousin in Canada?”

Mark shook his head, finally looking up at Donghyuck. A flush ran from his cheeks to his ears, angry and red. “No. I mean, he did help, but he couldn’t do anything about this,” he said waving his hand around. “Um, you remember Taeyong?”

Donghyuck certainly did. Just as well as he remembered his father’s tantrum when he had heard about one of the Kim heirs having lunch with him. It was quite comedic, considering how young Lee Taeyong was, and how small his business venture was, in the grand scheme of Lee Corp.

“Well, his dance thing started to succeed. Like, really succeed. And it pisses the family off so much that he made it without them interfering. He told me that he’d help me out, you know, give me a place to stay while I save up.”

“For what?”

“University would be nice. I mean, I kind of have my pick, as long as an uncle or whatever isn’t on the board. It’ll take a while on my salary but it’ll be mine,” Mark smiles a little, “and it’ll be worth it.”

Donghyuck felt the sudden urge to cry.

He tucked into his food instead, and before long they were both eating in earnest. There was so much left to unpack, so many more things that Donghyuck didn’t understand. Why didn’t Mark write? How could Donghyuck not have known that Mark had left the country? How could Donghyuck just let himself believe that Mark was as cruel and vindictive as his parents, that he’d turn his back on Donghyuck without a second thought.

“There’s so much more I need to say,” Mark said, like he could read Donghyuck’s mind. He put down his spoon to wring his fingers together. He did that when he was nervous. “But I need to apologise about the party first.”

Donghyuck snorted. “What, for—” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “kissing me?”

Mark nodded. “Yeah,” he said, and oh, so he was _completely_ serious.

“Well, you can let it go. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve apologised for that,” Donghyuck said, because apparently he couldn’t help but twist the knife. Quickly, he tried to deflect. “Besides, I started it, so it’s whatever.”

“It wasn’t fair on you,” Mark insisted.

Donghyuck rolled his eyes. “Do you want me to forgive you, Mark Lee? For not doing anything wrong?” The smile that overcame him felt distinctly watery, but it also felt right. Natural.

“I suppose I can do that,” Donghyuck said.

I

Donghyuck didn’t so much get over Mark as he did raze him entirely from his mind. Mark had left a space waiting to be filled with newer, shinier things, and Donghyuck had spent four years filling the deep well of nothingness that remained. He had gotten into the best music school in the city, successfully negotiating his way out of going to business school with all the other sons of his father’s colleagues. He didn’t have to be like them, he had said, not in _this_ family.

Somehow, that line of argument worked like a charm.

He had Renjun, and now Chenle — people that understood him and tried to look out for him. He had his sister, before she went abroad — and he couldn’t exactly blame her for not wanting to come home that often to be paraded around like a prized pony.

Just thinking about Mark hurt, so he didn’t want to think about him at all. The way things had ended was just salt in the wound, no matter how desperately Donghyuck wanted to move on, find closure, all that healthy stuff. At seventeen, his parents had told him he was too young. Too young to understand, too young for a relationship, certainly too young to think that any relationship he had was “serious”. It should have been easy, then, to get over him.

So why wasn’t it?

VI

It was strange, being friends with Mark Lee again. They couldn’t speak on the phone, so Donghyuck found himself at the store more often than he’d like to admit. It was easier to hide where he was going from his parents than it was from Renjun, who was, in the kindest way possible, a literal bloodhound. Any other time, Donghyuck would be grateful that at least one of them walked away from danger when they saw it, but he didn’t feel like explaining why he hadn’t run the other away at the news of Mark being back in town.

Deja Vu Records quickly became popular with students, which was both a good and a bad thing. There was a kid at the counter when Chenle and Renjun insisted they check it out after rehearsal, the same Jisung that Mark had mentioned and one of Chenle’s minions, apparently. Though, to his credit, Jisung seemed as likely to do Chenle’s bidding as he was to bully him for his new haircut.

In short, Donghyuck could see why Mark liked the kid.

It was also strange being friends with Lee Jeno. Well, _friends_ might be a bit of a stretch, but Jeno did smile a lot in Donghyuck’s direction. He had also taken on a somewhat mystical presence in Donghyuck’s home — his younger siblings even recognised Jeno’s name, since their parents spoke of him so often.

Donghyuck knew Renjun had his best interests at heart, when he introduced them at Johnny’s party. Yet there was something so strange about pursuing this friendship, with someone apparently so comfortable with who they were, and whom Donghyuck’s parents approved of — however superficially.

“I think you should just do it,” Mark said, when they met up during one of Mark’s lunch breaks. They were at some Western fast food chain near the university — somewhere that Donghyuck must have walked past a thousand times, but never noticed.

“Nothing wrong with making new friends.”

Donghyuck grimaced. “It feels like I’m giving in,” he admitted.

“You need people on your side, Donghyuck.”

“I have people on my side,” Donghyuck said petulantly.

“Someone your parents like,” Mark smiled.

Donghyuck took another bite of his sandwich. “They like Chenle. I think.”

Mark had laughed, folding his wrapper into a neat square. He lobbed it at the trash can next to them and pumped his fist as it went in.

“You are such a fucking dork,” Donghyuck told him.

“I’m right,” Mark shrugged. “Go on, admit I’m right.”

Donghyuck would _never_. He finished the last bite of his sandwich just to throw the wrapper in Mark’s direction, and relished in Mark’s indignant yell.

But Donghyuck did take his advice. Slowly, Jeno started joining Donghyuck and Renjun when they studied at the library, or the student centre. He even dropped them off at Renjun’s in his car when rehearsal ran over, smiling all the while. That can’t have been his default state — Donghyuck remembered vaguely the look of disgust when someone spilled their beer on him at Johnny’s party, or the general air of disinterest when a classmate _very_ subtly tried asking him what it was _like_ , interning for Kim Group.

“Do you guys hang out here most of the time?” Jeno had asked once, when they were studying at Renjun’s. Like Donghyuck, he lived at home during term, but unlike Donghyuck, his parents just treated Jeno like another one of Renjun’s friends.

“You should be grateful that we do,” Renjun said, shooting a look at Donghyuck. It was very convenient sometimes, to have a best friend who could read your mind.

Well, under the right circumstances.

“Besides,” Renjun continued, flicking his pen against his textbook, “my parents are like, total hippies. They’re all about, like, respecting people’s identities and shit.”

“How awful of them,” Donghyuck said flatly.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” Renjun said, “Jeno, what’s it like being out to your parents?”

Donghyuck choked. Sometimes Renjun liked to pretend he was more like Chenle, which is to say, that he said things with the subtlety of a brick through a window.

Jeno just laughed. “Sometimes my mom asks me some weird questions but my dad’s cool, you know? He’s chill about pretty much everything.”

 _Chill_ , Donghyuck thought, _I guess that’s the secret to not starting blood feuds with your business rivals._

When Jeno offered to drop Donghyuck off that evening, Donghyuck thought about what Mark said, about having someone in his corner.

“Sure,” Donghyuck said, and the conversation that followed was fine. _Do you have any siblings? Oh, that’s cool. No, but I’ve got three cats. What do you mean that’s not the same thing?_

“Renjun mentioned you haven’t dated in a while,” Jeno said at some point. It could have been the only thing he said, on repeat for the last ten minutes, with how the words bounced around Donghyuck’s head.

Oh, he was going to kill Renjun.

“I figured a guy like you would be beating people off with a stick,” Jeno continued. He was always so good natured.

“Yeah, that’s unlikely.”

“I don’t mean to offend you,” Jeno said, turning to Donghyuck with a smile. “You just seem very confident.”

“I’m projecting,” Donghyuck said, “You’ll get used to it.”

“I hope so,” Jeno said, still smiling. _Dear God_ , Donghyuck thought miserably, _did he ever stop?_

Of course, Donghyuck knew he was being unfair. Now that he knew Jeno personally, he was much easier to pick out of the crowd at the university library, frowning at shapes or whatever it was maths majors did. Jeno was just as human as the rest of them, even if some of his classmates’ parents had a weird fixation on his social status.

But this _thing_ Jeno did, where he dialed his people-pleasing abilities up to eleven — Donghyuck didn’t understand why he found himself bearing the brunt of it so often. It was possible that he had simply acclimatised to Renjun and Chenle’s snark and no longer knew what to do in the face of a direct and straightforward compliment, but that was giving his friends too much credit. Besides, even if they were in a weird phase where they acted like trading insults was a more appropriate post-relationship conversation than just speaking like regular humans, Mark could still be nice in a way that didn’t make him want to shrivel into the ground like a mole.

Jeno pulled up in front of Donghyuck’s gate.

“We should do this again sometime,” he said, as Donghyuck opened the door.

“What,” Donghyuck huffed out a laugh, “cram for a test at Renjun’s?”

“Nah, like, hang out again. Grab a meal.”

Donghyuck shifted his weight onto his other foot. The car door was cold under his hand. Behind the gate, all the lights in his house were on. His parents must have been home.

More people in his corner.

“Sure,” Donghyuck said. “You have my number.”

-

The restaurant Jeno had chosen was in one of those shiny new malls that was stuffed to the gills with department stores that Donghyuck’s mother would frequent if it weren’t so dangerously close to Vancouver Lee territory. Even Donghyuck himself felt a little uneasy, stepping out of the taxi at the address Jeno had given him. Seoul was changing, and rapidly. How long until the clearly defined lines simply blurred together, diluted by the indifference of greater powers?

When Donghyuck finally spotted Jeno, he was waving at him from a booth and wearing a truly monstrous combination of plaid hat and a button up. An _ironed_ button up, which Donghyuck personally would never — and certainly not on a Wednesday.

Despite his choice in headwear, and the fact that he was wearing a hat indoors in the first place, Jeno looked very much like the type of rich, polite young man that Donghyuck’s parents would encourage his sister to date. Not that this was a date. It was a friend-date, if anything. A friend not-date.

Donghyuck needed to stop thinking about dates.

“When you said Western, I was kind of expecting fast food,” Donghyuck admitted, sliding in opposite Jeno.

“Yeah, I was sceptical at first, but my uncle said it was good,” Jeno said, leaning in conspiritally. “If anyone asks, we’re having a _business lunch._ ”

Donghyuck pulled a face. Jeno held his serious expression for approximately two seconds longer before falling over himself laughing.

“Yeah, I hate it too,” he said, as if he had any idea.

As usual, it was easy enough to strike up conversation with Jeno. Donghyuck might have even considered it freeing, not being weighed down by years of shared experiences. Everything could just be small talk. Pleasantries. The weather. It was further than he got with anyone his parents tried to set him up with, that was for sure, but Donghyuck wasn’t mean enough to compare Jeno’s friendship to the shallow efforts of meddling adults.

But sometimes, Donghyuck would overthink a simple sentence, or hesitate for a second too long before laughing. There was a level of expectation, here. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Renjun would like it here,” Donghyuck said idly, spinning his fork. “We should invite him, next time.”

Jeno took a deep breath.

“I like you, Donghyuck,” he said abruptly. Donghyuck had to stare at him for a few moments, just to check that he had heard him correctly.

Well, this had come out of nowhere. Donghyuck tried his best to feel flattered — he really did. For all intents and purposes, Lee Jeno was perfect. This could have been a golden opportunity for Donghyuck to move on, to move on to someone who _liked_ him, apparently.

“We barely know each other,” Donghyuck said instead.

Jeno shrugged, looking a little less nervous. “That’s fair,” he said, “but you’re cute and you’re funny — what’s not to like?”

Donghyuck didn’t know what his face was doing. Was he grimacing in pain? In confusion? God forbid — was he blushing? The last time a boy told him he liked him, Donghyuck had gone red all the way to the tips of his ears. Mark had teased him for weeks.

“I know it must be hard,” Jeno was saying, “with your parents and everything. I wouldn’t mind, you know, keeping this on the down-low.”

“Huh?” Donghyuck shook himself out of his stupor. What was that about his parents?

“Sorry, I know I shouldn’t presume,” Jeno said, looking abashed. “I always rush in too fast. Jaemin said— well, it doesn’t really matter. I didn’t mean to pressure you, or anything. I just thought it would be better, you know, to tell you the truth.”

Suddenly, Donghyuck was back at Johnny’s party, staring at Jaemin holding court in his kitchen. Na Jaemin, who was one of the first people to know that Mark was back. Na Jaemin, his friend from high school, who had apparently helped sneak Mark into Donghyuck’s house.

“Whatever Jaemin says he knows about me,” Donghyuck found himself saying, “is a fucking lie.”

Jeno looked back at Donghyuck. “I think we’re on two different pages,” he said slowly, gently. Donghyuck felt the heat of embarrassment crawl up his face, and was standing up before he even realised he had moved.

Looking down at Jeno’s confused face, Donghyuck thought of Renjun. He sighed. “I’m happy to be your friend, Jeno,” he said. “But you’re right. You shouldn’t presume too much.”

He picked up his bag and shoved his hands awkwardly in his pockets. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, a peace offering, before making his escape.

I

When Mark and Donghyuck broke up, Donghyuck cried for two days. He refused to leave his room, ignoring his mother’s calls and the food the housekeeper left outside his locked door. He stared at the handful of pictures he had until his vision blurred. He felt immeasurably stupid, the feeling of loss too big for his body.

He cycled through all the stages of grief quite rapidly. So did his parents, it seemed, though they were stuck at denial for half a day, before making a loud and extended stop at anger before swiftly accepting that Mark was gone from Donghyuck’s life, and that it was for Donghyuck’s own good, and that Donghyuck’s anger towards them was misguided, really, and obscenely childish for a fully grown seventeen-year-old, for God’s sake.

When Donghyuck began to bargain, a white envelope slipped under his door. There was no note, but his parents’ gesture was transparent. The most genuine apology in his family always came in the form of a shiny black card and an implicit invitation to drive him and Renjun to Apgujeong to buy something ugly and expensive. It was rare for his parents to extend olive branches, so Donghyuck clung to the offer. He stepped out of his blackout curtain cave and back into the white marble corridors of his home, and vowed not to think about Mark Lee again.

VII

Mark was writing in that tiny notebook of his behind the counter when Donghyuck walked in, tongue pink between his teeth. He never used to do that in public — probably because Donghyuck teased him every time. He had only thought he was cute, but there were so many things that Donghyuck could have said differently, then. Donghyuck wondered if he’d ever get to read what Mark spent so long writing.

He wondered when he’d ever deserve to.

Mark’s eyes were on him the moment the bell above the door announced Donghyuck’s presence. There were a couple of other customers in the store — a gaggle of teenagers fiddling with a record player in a corner and an older woman flipping through her basket. They couldn’t be more disinterested in Donghyuck if they tried.

“Sorry,” Donghyuck said as he approached the counter. Mark’s brow automatically furrowed in concern.

“I’m a bad person,” Donghyuck continued, “he said I was funny and cute but he didn’t account for me being a _bad person_.”

“Who said that?” Mark said, hand twitching on the counter. Donghyuck looked at his slender fingers, the juts of his knuckles, and wondered how the hell he managed to fool himself at Johnny’s party.

Mark made an aborted motion, like he was about to vault over the counter to find the person who called Donghyuck a bad person. Or, if Donghyuck were being ridiculous, the person who called Donghyuck funny and cute.

Mark had never been the jealous sort.

“Sorry,” Donghyuck repeated nonsensically. “Today has been a lot.”

“It’s barely two,” Mark said with a hint of a smile, the lines of his shoulders loosening a little.

Donghyuck made a noise somewhere between a whine and a grunt. He didn’t trust his voice anymore. Not with all the crap that he caused just by opening his mouth.

“Is this about Lee Jeno?” Mark asked, astute as ever. He was obviously trying to sound casual, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. The tension still hadn’t bled entirely out of the line of his jaw.

“Urghhh,” Donghyuck said, wanting to sink into the floor. He didn’t know why he was there in the first place. Under normal circumstances, he would just run to Renjun, who would berate him and support him in a way only a friend could.

Did he consider Mark a friend?

Two months ago, it hurt to even think about him. Renjun hesitated to even say his name in Donghyuck’s presence, even when he felt he had to. But now, like stepping through the looking-glass, Mark was everywhere again. He was in the timbre of Donghyuck’s music, in the stories on the tip of his tongue. More than once, Donghyuck found himself stumbling over an excuse for why he had started giggling out of nowhere, when something Chenle did or Renjun said reminded him of Mark. Seeing him again was like opening a time capsule that Donghyuck had buried four years ago, deep in the recesses of his brain.

Oh God, it was happening again.

“Do you need to sit down?” Mark was saying, somewhere beyond Donghyuck’s damning internal monologue. “Yeah, I think you need to sit down. Just, come around the counter, and—”

“Oh God,” Donghyuck said, “I need to go.”

“You look like a strong wind could finish you off,” Mark said in his stern voice. If Donghyuck had his wits about him, he’d have used this opportunity to make fun of him, tell him that _Donghyuck_ could finish _Mark_ off if— oh, _God_.

Donghyuck was an idiot.

“Are you queuing?” the woman with a basket-load of records asked, sliding her walkman off her head. She was looking at Donghyuck kind of curiously, like she could see right through him.

“No,” Donghyuck pushed himself away from the counter, “sorry.”

He shot what he hoped was an apologetic look in Mark’s direction before making his way back to the door. One day, he would stop running away from things.

Donghyuck could feel Mark’s eyes on the back of his head even as he rang up the customer. Donghyuck had walked straight out of that restaurant without a second glance, feeling only a vague sort of guilt. This time, the tug in his gut was like the force of gravity, tethering him eternally to the ground. Walking away from Mark was like going against some rule of the universe.

And Donghyuck knew, despite the resentment he had held onto for so long, that Mark had felt the same.

-

One of Renjun’s greatest assets, Donghyuck thought, was that he knew how to read a room.

He didn’t ask Donghyuck why he was there, instead of with Jeno, and he didn’t ask Donghyuck if he had officially lost his mind. He just took one look at Donghyuck’s face when he opened the door, and quietly let Donghyuck walk upstairs to fall face-first into his bed.

There were some occasions when Donghyuck felt like a bad friend. A deceitful person who didn’t deserve Renjun’s comforting hand running through his hair.

This was one of them.

“Why do you think my parents let Mark’s parents break us up?” Donghyuck mumbled into Renjun’s duvet.

The hand stilled. “Well,” Renjun hummed, “what did they tell you?”

“That I didn’t know how bad his family was,” Donghyuck said, “that I couldn’t trust him. Or myself. Because I was too young to understand.”

“You were seventeen,” Renjun said, because he was. They all were — Mark on the very cusp of eighteen and his whole life ahead of him.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck said.

“I think you had every right to trust yourself,” Renjun said, even though he had been there for the aftermath. Had been there ever since.

“What if they were right?” Donghyuck whispered, like it was a terrible secret. He didn’t want them to be right. But now that he knew how Mark’s parents had sent him away, continents away, just because they had been together — he didn’t know what to think.

“No,” Renjun said, a hardness to his voice. “I know they’re your parents, but Donghyuck, do you really think they had nothing to do with this?”

“They let it happen,” Donghyuck agreed.

The silence stretched between them. “Oh, Donghyuck,” Renjun said, and his gentleness hurt. Donghyuck knew that it can’t have been the whole truth, not with how his mother was introducing him to her friend’s daughters not six months later, not with how much pressure his parents put on his sister about keeping up appearances. But there was something so terrible about admitting that his parents weren’t just passive actors in this — it would split Donghyuck’s world in two.

Is this what Mark had to go through?

“Is he back? Really back?”

Donghyuck didn’t realise that he’d spoken out loud.

“What would you do, if he were?” Donghyuck asked instead. A question for a question.

Renjun sighed. “It doesn’t matter what I’d do,” he said, though Donghyuck knew that wasn’t true. “But I know I’d be on your side.”

Sometimes, Renjun said things with such conviction that Donghyuck had to believe him.

“Even if I do something really, really stupid?”

Donghyuck didn’t have to look at Renjun to know what face he was pulling. “Well,” he said, “it wouldn’t be the first time.”

I

It wasn’t just a messy breakup.

Donghyuck had imagined avoiding Mark at lunch, in the corridors of their school. He imagined looking away when Mark’s gaze inevitably found him in the stands of the school gym during a basketball game, before sliding back to Mark as he played and scored, every point an _I love you_ , in code.

He imagined holding his hand under the table, except this time they were at university, and they had a flat, and they didn’t have to worry about anyone pulling Mark out of the pool by the collar, spitting with rage. He imagined being old enough for his parents to respect his decisions, he imagined them saying they approved all along, that they were just concerned, that he was too young.

“See?” they would say. “It all worked out in the end.”

Then he went back to school and Mark wasn’t there. And he hadn’t seen Mark again. Not until—

VIII

Donghyuck looked miserably out at the rain. His parka had been sufficient protection against that morning’s drizzle, but he wasn’t prepared to sacrifice it, or his hair, to the raging thunderstorm that was beginning to engulf Seoul.

Mark didn’t have a mobile, and he was very much the type of person who would wait an extra hour for a friend to show up at their agreed meeting place. Especially if that friend had asked to meet up in the first place, and that friend was his ex, and his name was Donghyuck.

It was embarrassing how giddy that made Donghyuck feel.

The rain had begun to soak through the canvas of Donghyuck’s shoe. He contemplated using his bag as shelter, but it was heavy with books he had just checked out of the library and he wasn’t sure he could deal with the guilt of ruining them. That didn’t leave him many options, but he supposed he could sneak in and out of stores until he reached the arcade where they’d agreed to meet.

“Hey.”

Donghyuck turned to see Jeno, umbrella in his hand and the picture of sheepishness.

“Hey,” Donghyuck parroted despite the painful awkwardness, because he was polite.

“Rain caught you out?”

Donghyuck grimaced. “You have no idea.”

“Look, uh, do you want me to walk you to the station? I’m heading that way, but I only have the one umbrella…”

Jeno was a nice person — this much Donghyuck was aware of. The last they spoke, Donghyuck had paid for his half of the meal he’d walked out on, because Renjun had laughed him out of his house when Donghyuck asked him to do it. It had been kind of awful, but Jeno’s smile was genuine, so Donghyuck let himself believe that Jeno had come to the independent conclusion that Donghyuck just wasn’t for him.

That had been a few days ago, and Donghyuck wasn’t going to bite a gift horse in the face, or whatever the saying was.

“Thanks,” Donghyuck said, before he said something stupid, like _I owe you_. “I’m just heading to the one a few streets down.”

“How have you been?” Jeno asked as they stepped out into the downpour. Donghyuck missed when small talk didn’t make him want to cringe.

“Fine. You know, busy. You? How’s the… math?”

“Oh, same as always,” Jeno nodded, looking like one of those novelty bobble-head dolls. Nodding, nodding, to fill the silence.

They walked down a block until the station came into sight, its entranceway like an open mouth, spewing wet and disgruntled passengers. “I met your dad today,” Jeno said, nonchalant. Donghyuck stopped walking.

“What?” he asked, as people moved around him. The back of his head was starting to get wet.

Jeno took a step towards him and Donghyuck fought the urge to flinch backwards. “Do you need a lesson on boundaries?” Donghyuck asked, a viper. A chill of anger ran through him, like it had been lying docile in the grass this whole time. He was getting tired of being cornered.

“He was at my dad’s office for a meeting,” Jeno said. “I just happened to bump into him. He asked me about school, you know? Where I was heading and stuff. And he thanked me for dropping you off that one time.”

“Did he thank you for hitting on me, too? Or did you not mention that?”

“Did you want me to?” Jeno said. He spoke like he wanted his words to sound mean, like he wanted them to hurt. It was so strange, springing from his placid features. He looked out of practice, but it made something in Donghyuck freeze all the same.

“What exactly did you say to him?” Donghyuck asked, feeling a little desperate. His breath was short in his chest, like the rain was leaching his supply of oxygen.

A hand came down on Jeno’s forearm, before Donghyuck could register its proximity. He was so, so tired of being cornered. “Hey man, how about you back off?”

It was comical how long Donghyuck had tried to remain in denial, when just the sound of Mark’s voice flooded him with such relief. Mark shifted his umbrella to cover Donghyuck’s back, and it took Donghyuck a moment to notice the clammy dampness. Jeno tugged his arm out of Mark’s grip, clearly affronted. The crowd continued to move around them, liquid.

“It’s none of your business,” Jeno said, “but my friend literally looks like he’s about to pass out.”

“Maybe if you didn’t threaten him—”

“What part of none of your business—”

“It’s fine,” Donghyuck said, “it’s whatever. Thanks for walking me, I guess. Let’s never speak of this again. Mark, let’s just go.”

Mark looked like he wanted to argue, but Jeno beat him to the punch.

“Mark,” Jeno said, “Lee Taeyong’s _cousin_. _Estranged_ cousin.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Donghyuck said. “Never met a Korean Mark before?”

“So you’re the secret Jaemin’s been keeping,” Jeno continued, like Mark was a particularly difficult puzzle he had been trying to solve. The answer on a quiz show. He almost sounded amazed.

Donghyuck looked at Mark. Suddenly, he realised that whenever he had looked at him, he had been seeing that seventeen-nearly-eighteen-year-old all along, his memories rose-tinted. Mark had grown older, and it was clear now that his jaw was clenched tight, the line of his brow hardened. His gaze was frighteningly impassive, like he had stared down the barrel of a stranger’s malicious word’s before. Donghyuck supposed that he must have, but he didn’t want to know how many times Mark had been forced into that situation.

He wanted to stand between them and take the bullet for himself.

“I was wondering why he wanted another invitation to Johnny’s party,” Jeno continued. His eyes flickered between them and he sighed.

“Look man, Jaemin’s my friend too. I’m not gonna go stab him in the back. But from what I hear? Your parents want to know where you are,” Jeno said, like he was offering a kindness instead of a knife.

“They know where I am,” Mark said, indifferent.

Donghyuck didn’t know who was bluffing. He couldn’t _think_. “You should leave it alone,” he found himself saying, not knowing if it was a threat or a plea. “Not everyone’s parents are like _yours_ , Lee Jeno.”

Jeno’s eyes widened like he’d been struck. Donghyuck didn’t know if he understood it the way Donghyuck intended — Donghyuck himself was still grappling with the gravity of that particular truth. But what Jeno had said to Donghyuck before, it seemed like an open secret.

The grief that swelled up under his ribs made him reach out for Mark. Their hands slotted together behind the folds of Donghyuck’s coat before Donghyuck could realise that Mark had been reaching for him too. Mark’s hand was warm — he always ran a little hot — and it felt like a tether. They hadn’t touched, not really, since that night in the bathroom. How foolish of them, to be dancing around each other when they could have simply returned home.

The rain was beginning to let up, and light spilled across the guilt dawning across Jeno’s face. Donghyuck couldn’t help but feel a streak of righteousness, then. He knew it was undeserved, but there was a sense of pride in standing next to the boy he fell in love with so long ago, finally touching, that eclipsed the terror he had felt when Jeno mentioned his father.

None of them noticed the car pulling up to the corner. Jeno scrubbed a hand across his hair, and heaved a sigh. “This is such a fuck-up,” he said, and Mark huffed out a laugh.

“You don’t say,” Donghyuck said.

“I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I was sorry?”

“Oh Jeno, dear,” Donghyuck’s mother tutted, her voice slippery and cold. “You’ve nothing to be sorry about.”

Everyone around him seemed to move at once. Jeno, easily spooked, flinched as Donghyuck’s mother cast her flat, smiling gaze across them, while Mark’s grip tightened as he moved in front of him. But Donghyuck remained suspended there, on the sidewalk, like a marionette with its strings cut but still falling, falling, not quite hitting the ground.

It was like being in that pool, four years ago. Opening his eyes underwater and feeling the chlorine sting, the brief moment between treading water and letting your feet stretch out towards the tiles. Being smaller, weaker, water entering the lungs as you’re yanked out of the water by something stronger. Were you being saved? Were you drowning? Or were you trying to get away? To go down, down to the tiles and further into the patterns created by the ripples on the surface.

“Get in the car,” she said, not looking at him. Looking through him. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

A misguided, childish seventeen-year-old.

Somewhere behind him, Mark was talking. He wasn’t yelling, like last time, but the pain was the same. Or was it fear? It was such a shame — Mark had tried so hard to outrun it.

Donghyuck wasn’t very good at running. He always finished last when they did laps, so by the end of high school he had stopped putting in the effort. He wasn’t a quitter, but wasn’t it so much better to lose on purpose than to lose trying?

Donghyuck was getting tired of losing.

“Come on,” Mark was saying. His eyes were bright, street lights filling them with stars. He used to tell Donghyuck about the constellations, and map them out on his cheek to tease him.

 _The lines don’t exist_ , Donghyuck used to say, just to be annoying. _Who gets to decide that star A gets to be linked with star B but not C? It’s bullshit._

Donghyuck decided to get in the car.

“It’ll be okay,” Donghyuck said, and Mark made a sound like a wounded animal. He was still holding onto Donghyuck’s hand. It wasn’t fair, how Mark kept on running. When Donghyuck was sitting, alone and hurt at home, Mark had been on his feet, forced to move.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Donghyuck said, smiling faintly. With a final squeeze of Mark’s hand, he let go.

Donghyuck looked at his mother, standing by the open car door like the threat, and saw the tall, white walls of his house — all its cool, sharp corners. He couldn’t outrun a wall, not one that stretched from one corner of his life to the next, closing him in.

It was a good thing, then, that Donghyuck had no plans to run.

IX

What surprised Donghyuck the most was that his father was driving.

Since Donghyuck was young, Donghyuck had been ferried to sports clubs and music lessons and tuition by one of his parents’ drivers. There was a point, somewhere in the middle when it was just Donghyuck and his sister, where his mother would drive them to see his father at work. Even though their father would always swing them both up into his arms and parade them through the office, letting them grab at the sweets in the bowls and the shiny pens on his desk, Donghyuck never knew what to expect, because his father hated surprises.

Everything in their family had to be meticulous, well-manicured and well-planned. The right extra-curricular activities, the right galas, the right charities. Avoid the wrong families and the wrong deals to go to the right schools and make the right connections.

Donghyuck had the feeling that he had been disappointing them long before he was seventeen.

No one spoke in the car. The silence, at least, was no surprise. His parents didn’t even look at each other, anger rolling off them in waves, red-hot. _Did they blame each other?_ Donghyuck wondered. The thought made him want to laugh. It would hardly surprise him — four years and they were still looking for scapegoats.

 _Well_ , Donghyuck wanted to shout, _I’m right here_.

The rain had plagued even the outskirts of Seoul, where Donghyuck lived, making the car skid angrily across the gravel of the driveway. The water had turned the pebbles obsidian, each stone a glinting eye crunched under the tires.

Donghyuck got out of the car.

The foyer was empty, but he could hear the shrieks of his siblings upstairs. His father glared at the ceiling. The twins were always excited when Donghyuck came home at the same time they finished school, and there was never a shortage of primary school gossip for Donghyuck to gasp dramatically at.

Donghyuck would be nursing that guilt for a very long time.

“Go to your room,” Donghyuck’s mother said, examining the bowl of keys by the door. She wasn’t looking at him. She could pull the strings of his life, tug him this way and that, but she wouldn’t fucking look at him.

“I think I’m okay,” Donghyuck said, pushing past the tremble in his throat, “seeing as I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Listen to your mother,” Donghyuck’s father said in a way that would have once been unbearable, the words grinding between his teeth. They had gotten so comfortable, his parents, in their knowledge that Donghyuck would eventually just do what they wanted — that he bended and folded under pressure. When he had tried, in his teenage indignance, to push back, they had snapped him in half.

They must have thought themselves so capable, to be able to shove the undesirable under the carpet to present the most perfect of pictures, every thing and every child molded to fit their predestined place. They didn’t even have to get their hands dirty.

But in their pride, they had become short-sighted. That was dangerous, you see, especially in this business. How could a family legacy be upheld if they lost control over the children? It must have been incomprehensible, Donghyuck’s terrible misbehaviour. What could they have done to deserve this?

As evidence of their shortcomings, Donghyuck was a smoking gun.

Donghyuck wondered if it was killing them.

“The driver will take you to your classes tomorrow,” Donghyuck’s mother said to the air beside him. “You will do your studying at home, and your phone will be disconnected.”

Donghyuck had expected this, but it still hurt. Four years, and it still hurt.

His mother’s shoes fell to the floor with a clatter. “If you had just been _good_ ,” she choked out, as if she were suddenly in great pain, “if you had just been normal— do you know how pleased we were when we found out you were friends with that Kim boy? You had finally done something for the _family_ — and now you bring this shame on us _again_ —”

“ _Good_ ,” Donghyuck snarled, the word tearing out of his throat. “You deserve to feel ashamed. You taught your child to hide himself, and made me think it was everyone else’s fault! Everyone but you! I think I’d respect you more if you were honest — but you just hide behind your hate like cowards.”

“You forget whose roof it is over your head, _boy_ ,” his father thundered.

“How could I forget?” Donghyuck cried out, “by the way, that _Kim boy_ —” Donghyuck swallowed, stopping himself, “no friendship of mine would _ever_ benefit you. Everyone sees through this farce. See if you get a call from Kim Group again, since it’s so important to you.”

“You dare threaten me?” his father said, vein throbbing in his red forehead. He looked like an overripe fruit, rotten with hatred. “I won’t look at you a second longer. Go upstairs.”

Donghyuck wanted to scream, his blood singing with adrenaline. He could either fight or fly — there was no longer an inbetween. “Why?” he asked, “why keep me around, if I’m not even good enough to be a trophy?”

His mother laughed, a cruel, high sound. She was looking at him now, and it took everything Donghyuck had to stand his ground. “You are an embarrassment,” she said, like Donghyuck was going to agree, “but you are still a Lee. Everyone knows you’re a member of this family — this is simply damage control.”

“The damage has been done,” Donghyuck said, making up his mind, “and the only people you can blame are yourselves.”

“Enough empty threats, boy,” the man who was Donghyuck’s father said. “This family is all that you have.”

“No,” Donghyuck said, the scent of freedom making him brave. “You are nothing compared to what I have.”

X

Rain dripped miserably from Donghyuck’s hood to splash onto his cheeks. He rubbed the wetness away with the back of his hand roughly, just for another rivulet to run down his temple from his hair. The weather was simply adding insult to injury — he wanted to feel emancipated, liberated. Instead, the storm that raged so violently against the evening sky made him feel small.

Donghyuck had walked this road many times before. He knew every dip and curb even without the help of the streetlights. He just hoped that Mark would have gotten the message, would have figured out Donghyuck’s plan there on the sidewalk. He hoped that Mark wasn’t so foolish as to try and come after him — not here, and certainly not alone.

Donghyuck was waiting for the exhaustion to catch up to him. He had wondered, many times before, how Mark must have felt when he walked out of his parents’ house. It wasn’t the same, of course — Donghyuck had the illusion of choice, yet he still felt like someone had cut out a slice of his soul. He imagined doing this at seventeen, and the pain was too much to bear.

Renjun’s house wasn’t far by car, but Donghyuck realised why the journey had seemed impossibly long when he was eight-year-old and running away for the first time to the safest place he knew. He remembered his nanny running towards him after what felt like hours of walking, scooping him up into her arms and scolding him through heaving breaths.

He didn’t know if his parents ever found out.

Rain continued to seep through every layer of fabric on Donghyuck’s body, his shoes squelching beneath him. Donghyuck knew that if he were kinder, better, if he still had a filial bone left in his body, that he’d have dumped his bag, his mobile, even his soaking wet shoes in the foyer and not looked back. But Donghyuck wasn’t any of those things, not in the eyes of people who no longer mattered, anyway, so he took them. Something about compensation.

Two lights shone through the blue-grey sheets of rain, making Donghyuck squint. He barely had time to hope that the driver wasn’t some asshole who sped up when he saw people walking in the rain, before the car came to a halt next to him.

“Donghyuck!” Renjun cried, tripping out of the passenger seat and tucking Donghyuck into his skinny frame, like he wanted to keep Donghyuck under his skin and never let go. Donghyuck didn’t realise how cold the rain had made him until he felt Renjun’s radiating warmth, the press of his hand over his numb cheeks.

“Oh my God, get in the car,” Renjun said, opening the back seat and maneuvering Donghyuck inside. He slid in behind him, a blanket appearing across Donghyuck’s shoulders as if by magic. His teeth were chattering.

“It’s okay,” Renjun soothed. It was strange, how Donghyuck hadn’t cried since the afternoon. Instead of feeling the hot, humiliating press of tears that typically came when he was angry, he had simply felt… empty, looking at his parents. But here in the car, under the shitty backseat lighting, Renjun’s eyes were so wide with concern that he couldn’t help but choke on a sob.

“It’s okay, Donghyuck,” Renjun repeated. Rubbing the blanket through Donghyuck’s hair, he turned to the driver. “I think we should go.”

Donghyuck blinked at Jeno and felt a fresh wave of tears threatening to spill over, a cocktail of embarrassment and shame. It was all so fucked up, just as Jeno said, and Donghyuck couldn’t help but feel like the catalyst of it all.

“Hey,” Renjun said, snapping his fingers under Donghyuck’s nose. “Stop it. I know where your head’s at, and you need to get out.”

When Donghyuck had been thinking of his plan, well, it was actually Renjun’s plan. He had laid out the way Chenle was going to make Donghyuck’s excuses and collect his homework, how his parents would field Donghyuck’s parents, if they ever cared to follow him. He had talked Mark down from bursting into Donghyuck’s neighbourhood with the fearlessness of a child who had no idea how deep the pool really was, and convinced him to go somewhere safe.

“I don’t deserve you,” Donghyuck muttered from where he was crushed into Renjun’s side.

“Don’t be _stupid_ ,” Renjun said. “I told you, I’m on your side.” Then he smirked a little. “Even if you have bad taste in boys.”

“That,” Donghyuck pointed out wetly, “is the absolute least of my problems, right now.”

“One thing at a time,” Renjun sang, the playful lilt of his voice hiding the tension underneath. “But I think there’s another conversation you have to have tonight, and it’s not with me.”

-

There were some things about Mark, Donghyuck realised, that he still didn’t understand.

As he stared up at the cross illuminating the ink of the night sky, Donghyuck couldn’t help but wonder if Mark was trying to send him a message. Its glow made the rain-slick streets bleed neon red, each streak an arrow pointing Donghyuck to salvation.

Donghyuck had never paid much attention in Sunday school, but he could appreciate the metaphor.

He pressed his hand against the carved wood door and found that it was shaking. The door creaked open under the pressure, and Donghyuck couldn’t help the tremor that shuddered through him.

“Shit,” he said, “why did he want to meet _here_?” before pausing guiltily.

“No offence,” he offered the ceiling, which didn’t reply. Donghyuck took that as good a sign as any.

He pushed through the second set of doors, the wind sending rows of red candles flickering. The storm had lit the inside of the church in bursts of greens and yellows and blues, shining through the scenes of stained glass.

Churches were always so echoey, every step reverberating no matter if the building was new, pretending to be centuries old, if it was Easter service or in the middle of a storm on a weekday evening. But it wasn’t empty. An old couple stood by the collection box, counting coins from their wallets and speaking jovially to a priest. There were a handful of people scattered amongst the pews, their jackets damp with rain.

Mark was sitting at the front, his hands clasped loosely between his knees. His eyes were closed, but even under the dim candle-light Donghyuck could see that they were swollen. Donghyuck wondered how long he’d been sitting here. Donghyuck wondered if Mark was as tired as he was, as if days had passed instead of hours.

“You’re here,” Mark said, opening his eyes. A smile coloured his voice as he looked up at Donghyuck.

Donghyuck swallowed. “Yup,” he said, and found that his mouth was very dry. He chewed on his lip. “May I?” he asked, gesturing towards the pew like an idiot.

“Please,” Mark said, shuffling to the side. Donghyuck collapsed onto the bench next to him, breath leaving his lungs in a rush. They sat there, side by side, for a brief moment, before finding themselves in each other’s arms. Donghyuck’s hand found the back of Mark’s head, the tender curve of his skull, and clutched at the short hairs there. He pressed his cheek to Mark’s ear, the side of his face, cold against warm, and tried desperately not to cry.

So many things that Donghyuck had left untouched, unexamined, threatened to bubble up his throat and onto his tongue. How he loved even the ghost Mark had left behind when they were torn from each other. When he forced himself to hate Mark it felt like a desecration, an unspeakable cruelty — but the hatred would otherwise turn itself inwards, into Donghyuck, and how could he possibly live like that? Their families had taught them nothing but war on superficial grounds, so conflict was all Donghyuck knew. It was a comfort, almost. It was familiar.

Donghyuck was sick of that spiteful familiarity.

He turned his nose into Mark’s neck, breathed him in. Outside the stone walls the storm continued to strike the city with its light, and Donghyuck could almost taste the ozone there in the dip under Mark’s ear.

“I missed you,” Donghyuck said, and meant _I love you_. Mark laughed, which also meant _I love you_. Every clutch of their fingers and every half-hearted insult and every offer to grab a soda, a meal, a drunken compliment in disguise had been an I love you. It was true when they were teenaged and stupid, and on that day it was truer still.

Slowly, they untangled themselves. Donghyuck lowered his head onto Mark’s shoulder and looked out at the altar, the candlelight making the gold paint blink and flicker. Above him, Mark pressed his lips to Donghyuck’s forehead, a sweet, steady pressure. Donghyuck held both of Mark’s hands between his, feeling the press of each knuckle and each callus against his palms like a prayer.

“Renjun said this place was safe,” Donghyuck said, sotto voce, “but it’s dangerously close to my— ugh, you know, my father’s office.”

Mark’s answering chuckle was sheepish. “I told myself I was hiding in plain sight,” he said, eyes trained on their joined hands, “but I think I was just hoping I’d bump into you.”

“Well,” Donghyuck said, “I see you ended up taking a more direct approach. Very subtle, Mark Lee.”

“There’s so much more I haven’t told you,” Mark murmured, “but seeing you again, being your friend, made everything just… slip away.”

“I’ll always be your friend,” Donghyuck whispered, feeling a little drunk, “but I think we’re meant for more.”

“Like destiny?” Mark said, and it made Donghyuck want to kiss that stupid smirk right off his face. “Are you saying we’re written in the _stars_ , Lee Donghyuck?”

“You’re the worst,” Donghyuck said.

Mark bumped his shoulder into Donghyuck’s. “You love me.”

And Donghyuck did.


End file.
